Page:The Secret of Chimneys - 1987.djvu/48

 as an additional precaution put a chair against it. On the chair he placed the water-bottle from the bathroom.

Surveying these preparations with some pride, he undressed and got into bed. He had one more shot at the Count’s Memoirs, but felt his eyelids drooping, and stuffing the manuscript under his pillow, he switched out the light and fell asleep almost immediately.

It must have been some four hours later that he awoke with a start. What had awakened him he did not know-perhaps a sound, perhaps only the consciousness of danger which in men who have led an adventurous life is very fully developed.

For a moment he lay quite still, trying to focus his impressions. He could hear a very stealthy rustle, and then he became aware of a denser blackness somewhere between him and the window—on the floor by the suit-case.

With a sudden spring, Anthony jumped out of bed, switching the light on as he did so. A figure sprang up from where it had been kneeling by the suit-case.

It was the waiter, Giuseppe. In his right hand gleamed a long thin knife. He hurled himself straight upon Anthony, who was by now fully conscious of his own danger. He was unarmed and Giuseppe was evidently thoroughly at home with his own weapon.

Anthony sprang to one side, and Giuseppe missed him with the knife. The next minute the two men were rolling on the floor together, locked in a close embrace. The whole of Anthony’s faculties were centred on keeping a close grip of Giuseppe’s right arm so that he would be unable to use the knife. He bent it slowly back. At the same time he felt the Italian’s other hand clutching at his windpipe, stifling him, choking. And still, desperately, he bent the right arm back.

There was a sharp tinkle as the knife fell on the floor. At the same time, the Italian extricated himself with a swift twist from Anthony’s grasp. Anthony sprang up too, but made the mistake of moving towards the door to cut off the other’s retreat. He saw, too late, that the chair and the water-bottle were just as he had arranged them.

Giuseppe had entered by the window, and it was the window he made for now. In the instant’s respite given him by Anthony’s move toward the door, he had sprung out on the